


Reality

by T_L



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Sillyfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-26
Updated: 2006-06-13
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15138995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/T_L/pseuds/T_L
Summary: This story is about the connection between the Justice League's world and the real world.





	1. Talks

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at jlaunlimited.com

**Summary:** _Batman and Wonder Woman have to deal with the prospect of alternate universes, alternate selves and of being controlled by others._

 **Disclaimer:** _The Justice League and all related characters are property of DC Comics. This fiction was written purely for fun, no money is being made with this._

**1\. Talks**

 

“We’d never do anything like that. We’re not the Lords. They’re not the real us!”

 

“The real us?”

 

“Yes! They’re not us, they’re just an alternate reality, they’re not _real_!”

 

“And you think we’re real?”

 

“Of course we’re real!”

 

“I don’t think so.”

 

“What?!”

 

“I don’t think we’re real.”

 

“How can you say that? Just look around you, of course we’re real!”

 

“In this dimension, yes. In the Lords’ dimension, no. But what if you look at all these dimensions together?”

 

“…”

 

“Just like the Lords’ world, there are lots of parallel universes next to ours. Each one with a different version of us. Heck, there are enough different versions of you to fill several books!”

 

“That’s not true.”

 

“Use your lasso on me, princess. It’ll tell you I’m not lying.”

 

“No! That’s not what I meant. You wouldn’t lie about something like this. I just can’t believe it.”

 

“There’s no use hiding from the truth. It’ll always find you, one way or another.”

 

“Which one of these… dimensions is the real one?”

 

“There is no “real” or “unreal” dimension, princess. It’s not that easy.

These dimensions are all existing next to each other. Every dimension has a border with every other of these dimensions and with the right equipment and technology it is possible to travel to another one.

All of these dimensions are linked to single one. One where we don’t exist. They _do_ have us, though. Lots of different versions. _There_ , we appear in television shows, books, comics and cartoons. And each version of us _there_ is different.

 

“What are you saying?”

 

“Each version of us depicts one of these dimensions exactly as it is, except that they only show the more important things, like great battles, and not everything of our every day lives.

I don’t know how the link between our dimensions and _them_ works. Perhaps the writers _there_ have a mental link to the dimensions and write down what happens. Or maybe we are just the creation of the writers and everything we do, we do because the tell us to by writing about it.”

 

“So we’re probably not even real? What are we fighting for if we don’t have the power to change anything? If everything here, our entire world, is created by a single human in another dimension? What are we fighting for, Bruce?”

 

“That is something you’ll have to find out for yourself.”


	2. Thoughts I, Bruce

**2\. Thoughts I, Bruce**

 

Gotham looked as it always did at night. Dark, dirty, depressive – an dangerous. But to Bruce, it looked different, had looked different since he had found out about _the other dimension_.

Bruce, not Batman.

Batman was the one who had sped away from Wayne Manor a few hours ago and he was the one who had caught a bankrobber and stopped three muggings tonight. Batman, a paranoid vigilante who was obsessed with fighting crime and terrifying criminals in his city. The person standing atop the tallest building in Gotham, looking down at the city, however, was Bruce.

Up here, with the city beneath him, alone with the night and the cold wind tugging at his cape, he was free to think as Bruce.

And he thought, thought about the conversation he had had with Diana in the training room.

She was the first to know. He knew he would at least have to tell the remaining five founding members, if not the entire Justice League, but he would do it one by one. He couldn’t be cautious enough with this matter. This was something hard to understand and even harder to believe. And it made people think about… _things._ And the League couldn’t afford to have all or most of the core members emotionally unstable. Not now.

He just hoped Diana wouldn’t ruin his plan. She wasn’t the kind of person who’d go running around telling everybody she met, though.

She would think about it alone, first.

He had not intended to tell her, but their conversation had taken that turn and he would have had to tell her anyway, sooner or later.

What he had told her was the truth, but not the whole truth.

It was true that he didn’t know how the connection between their world and _the other world_ worked. He had kept secret from her though, that from what he had found out the second possibility, claiming that their entire universe was _unreal_ , was the more likely one. She seemed to have guessed, however. And she had asked the same question he had asked when he had found out.

_What are we fighting for?_

He wished he could have given her an answer, but, as he had told her, it was something she would have to find out for herself. It was the only way she would be able to realise and accept it.

She would manage. She was an amazingly strong woman, in more ways than one.

 

And standing there, looking down at Gotham, he saw what he was fighting for, as he had every night since he made his discovery.

Even if this world was the creation of one man (there was still the possibility that it wasn’t) it was real in itself. This was the city he fought for, this was _his_ city, with all his inhabitants.

Lots of people were suffering, were in pain. And this pain was real.

This pain was what he fought against, ever since he had made his vow, years ago. Nobody should ever have to feel the pain he had.

And as long as there was pain, there was a reason for him to fight.


	3. Thoughts II, Diana

**3\. Thoughts II, Diana**

 

She was flying over (enter WW’s city name here), checking for any signs of trouble. The sun was shining, the sky was blue with only a few white clouds drifting over its surface and the city was buzzing like a hive of busy bees.

It was a perfect day.

For everyone but Diana.

She would have rather had freezing cold or burning heat. She wouldn’t have minded a hurricane, either.

Anything but this perfectness.

Not when everything was so un-perfect inside her.

 

She dearly wished for trouble. She needed something to do, something to distract her, to keep her from thinking.

But of what use was anything she did? Of what use was it to try and help if all was controlled by a single human in another dimension and she had no influence on it whatsoever.

Yes, Bruce hadn’t _said_ they were controlled by an alternate universe, he had just mentioned it as a possibility. But he thought it was the most likely one.

She had gotten good at reading Bruce.

Or maybe some writer had decided to make him easier to read.

 

Her insides pulled themselves together at the thought.

The seven founding members had grown together over the years, had become the resemblance of a family. They all cared for and respected each other, and though they quarrelled at times, they still belonged together, bound together by bonds too strong to sever.

And they were all not real.

She almost cried out in agony. The thought hurt more than physical pain ever could.

Her friends and loved ones were all not real.

She was not real.

 

Diana had never had suicidal thoughts before.

She’d never had any reason to.

True, she had had her share of emotional blows, but she had always believed that if she did not give up, life would go on.

The pain lessened with time, and although it never went away, she was able to lead a happy life.

Her sense of responsibility had also been too high to let her think such thoughts. She couldn’t just opt out, leaving everything behind, not helping others who neede help.

And for another, she had always been sure the gods had granted her life for a reason, so her life couldn’t be meaningless.

 

Now, though, it was different.

She was unable to change anything.

Incapable of helping anyone she could not have any responsibilities, could she?

So why not end it all here, and let somebody else worry about parallel universes and alternate dimensions?

 

Then a thought came floating into her mind.

 

_What are we fighting for?_

 

These were the words she had said to Bruce, right after he had told her what he knew.

What about him?

Did he think the thoughts, ask himself the same questions she did?

 

_That is something you’ll have to find out for yourself._

 

That was his answer to her question, that was all he gave her, all he could give her.

 

Was it?

 

Thinking back, Diana wasn’t so sure.

Though Batman never showed emotions openly, she had gotten quite good at reading little signs. A slight shift in his position, the tensening of muscles, a clench of the jaw, a breath only audible to superhearing, these were small things that gave him away.

Diana highly doubted anyone apart from her, Superman and Alfred were able to read these signs.

Back there, in the training room, he hadn’t seemed comfortable, no, but he hadn’t seemed to have the doubts and thoughts she had, either.

 

Did he know the answer to her question?

If so, why hadn’t he told her?

She felt anger well up inside her.

Did it please him to torment her?

Did it amuse him to see her feeling terrible and confused like this?

 

As quickly as the anger came she felt it drift away.

Bruce would never do that to her. He had his reasons if he didn’t tell her something he knew. They were as different as day and night and reasons for fighting were something personal, what worked for him would most likely not work for her.

She had to have faith in her friends.

But they weren’t real. She wasn’t real.

 

How could Batman have found out about this, then?

Did some writer think it was funny to put them through all this?

And how could she be thinking these thoughts?

Were they a writer’s idea, too?

 

Diana closed her eyes and clapped her hands over her ears, trying to block out these thoughts. She didn’t want to think anymore, she wanted it all to stop.

 

Suddenly a piercing scream provided the distraction she had wished for and drove all those thoughts to the back of her mind.

In less than a second, she took in the situation.

The scream had come from a young woman who was leaning out one of the top windows of a skyscraper while a small child was falling, hurtling towards the ground at a tremendous speed.

Without thinking she dived, flying at top speed, trying to reach the child.

Ten feet above the ground she was level with the boy, she reached out and held him tight while stopping her decent and starting to rise slowly upwards.

The boy was two years old, at most. His blond hair was tousled and his blue eyes still looked slightly scared, but he was laughing, not having realised the full extent of the danger he had been in.

They had reached the young woman and Diana handed her the boy through the open window and listened to the woman thanking her over and over.

As she flew away she heard the woman scolding her son for playing with the window again. She looked back and saw the mother looking shocked and the boy looking rueful, though a bit confused.

 

And suddenly she knew.

She realised what she was fighting for, why she couldn’t just opt out and drop everything.

This was life.

No matter how unreal this whole world was, this life was real, and there was nothing as beautiful as life.

It was her responsibility to protect it, she was the one who had been gifted with special abilities to do exactly that, and as long as there was life, there was a reason for her to fight.

## END


End file.
